Star CEO Peter Mukherjea has dismissed speculations about introduction of the new 'category wise' tariff structure in near future. Several news stories recently talked about the introduction of this radical 'Pay-more-for-Buying-more' structure that would load the dice against heavy TV spenders- FMCGs. Mukherjea made this clarification while speaking with exchange4media in Mumbai. He stated, "Category wise rate card is still at the drawing board stage. We think that we should have certain category wise rates - but the thought is still being crystallized".

But this initiative is certainly not out of the window. Spelling out the rationale behind the category wise rate card, Mukherjea said, "The conventional logic says that if you use more you should pay less - but, in case of television, we have a finite volume of inventory. To accommodate more advertising, I would not increase my advertising time to 20 minutes an hour from 10 minutes an hour, and give the lowest rate to the large buyers. Increase in clutter would drive down the viewer involvement and adversely affect viewership"

Peter Mukherjea also said that there are no changes in the ad sales strategy after his assuming direct change of the sales efforts. "Our sales strategy is fine. We will continue with the same strategy. As CEO, I was always involved in sales. It is just that now I look at it more closely."

As reported earlier, after the departure of Raj Nayak, three Vice presidents now look after ad sales operations of the network. Kevin Vaz now handles STAR Plus, STAR Gold and STAR Vijay, Joy Chakravarti looks after STAR News, and Monica Tata has taken over ad sales of STAR World and STAR Movies. All three VPs report to Mukherjea directly.